Tumblety and L Ron Hubbard

[MrTwibbs]

This really is quite a moot point but the more i've heard of FT the more i'm starting to believe he was in some ways shares character traits with L Ron Hubbard.
A grandiose and inflated opinion of himself.
dressing up in quasi military outfits
making up stories about himself
travelling a lot in his younger days
Having a sense of the dramatic
And they both got in trouble with the law for various reasons
Both under surveillance
Both died leaving considerable wealth

Going back onto FT, he does seem to be a likely suspect but is it likely a homosexual could be a murderer of the opposite sex? I personally don't know of any other occurrence of this happening?

I was told recently that he murdered two people, is there any truth to this?

[mklhawley]

This really is quite a moot point but the more i've heard of FT the more i'm starting to believe he was in some ways shares character traits with L Ron Hubbard.
A grandiose and inflated opinion of himself.
dressing up in quasi military outfits
making up stories about himself
travelling a lot in his younger days
Having a sense of the dramatic
And they both got in trouble with the law for various reasons
Both under surveillance
Both died leaving considerable wealth

Going back onto FT, he does seem to be a likely suspect but is it likely a homosexual could be a murderer of the opposite sex? I personally don't know of any other occurrence of this happening?

I was told recently that he murdered two people, is there any truth to this?

Hi MrTwibbs,

Your last question seems to suggest he was convicted of murdering two people, and that is not correct.

I like you L Ron Hubbard thoughts, although Francis Tumblety was an extremely private person. His public persona seems to have been strictly for business. He would make a grand stand entrance into a city and then rake in dough, sometimes between $100 and $300 per day. A Scotland Yard detective at the time had an annual salary of about $400 per year.


Keep in mind, we have no idea what the true motive of Jack the Ripper was, because we have no idea who he was. JTR certainly seems to conform to a sado-sexual serial murderer, but this is still hypothetical. If his MO was that of a prostitute/woman hater, this does not necessarily have to be sado-sexual. In my opinion, rejecting any JTR suspect because of a potential motive is not the correct approach.

We on Casebook battle all of the time about rejecting Francis Tumblety because of his desire for young men or not. The debates get spirited, but definately healthy.

Sincerely,

Mike

[MrTwibbs]

Hi MrTwibbs,

Your last question seems to suggest he was convicted of murdering two people, and that is not correct.

I like you L Ron Hubbard thoughts, although Francis Tumblety was an extremely private person. His public persona seems to have been strictly for business. He would make a grand stand entrance into a city and then rake in dough, sometimes between $100 and $300 per day. A Scotland Yard detective at the time had an annual salary of about $400 per year.


Keep in mind, we have no idea what the true motive of Jack the Ripper was, because we have no idea who he was. JTR certainly seems to conform to a sado-sexual serial murderer, but this is still hypothetical. If his MO was that of a prostitute/woman hater, this does not necessarily have to be sado-sexual. In my opinion, rejecting any JTR suspect because of a potential motive is not the correct approach.

We on Casebook battle all of the time about rejecting Francis Tumblety because of his desire for young men or not. The debates get spirited, but definately healthy.

Sincerely,

Mike

Thanks Mike, I had read on a video comment on youtube that Tumblety had murdered two people. Is there any tangible evidence to support he ever killed anyone by design?

There's also a claim that Tumblety was a bi sexual but I do not see evidence of this. Also with him being gay it would be unusual to kill outside of his target group? i don't recall any homosexual serial killers murdering the opposite sex?

[mklhawley]

Thanks Mike, I had read on a video comment on youtube that Tumblety had murdered two people. Is there any tangible evidence to support he ever killed anyone by design?

There's also a claim that Tumblety was a bi sexual but I do not see evidence of this. Also with him being gay it would be unusual to kill outside of his target group? i don't recall any homosexual serial killers murdering the opposite sex?

Hi Mr. Tubbs,

All through Francis Tumblety's life he expertly avoided convictions on multiple kinds of infractions, including rage-type violence. He would either leave town or leave the country. Difficulty in getting anything tangible on a rich charlatan constantly moving in the 1800's is not a stretch of logic. Remember, this was at a time when the most damning evidence in a case would have been eyewitness testimonies; a luxury we do not have with the Whitechapel murders.

Back to the homosexuality issue. The argument against Tumblety being a serious JTR suspect because of his homosexuality fits into the practice of criminal profiling of serial killers. Notice what recent research has discovered about the practice of profiling (I posted this on an earlier thread):

Two peer reviewed articles in Criminal Justice and Behavior demonstrate the limits to criminal profiling. The first one, Taking Stock in Criminal Profiling (Vol. 34, No. 4, 437-453 (2007)) states: The use of criminal profiling (CP) in criminal investigations has continued to increase despite scant empirical evidence that it is effective. Narrative review results suggest that the CP literature rests largely on commonsense justifications. Results from the 1st meta-analysis indicate that self-labeled profiler/experienced-investigator groups did not outperform comparison groups in predicting offenders' cognitive processes, physical attributes, offense behaviors, or social habits and history, although they were marginally better at predicting overall offender characteristics. Results of the 2nd meta-analysis indicate that self-labeled profilers were not significantly better at predicting offense behaviors, but outperformed comparison groups when predicting overall offender characteristics, cognitive processes, physical attributes, and social history and habits. Methodological shortcomings of the data and the implications of these findings for the practical utility of CP are discussed.

The second one, The Criminal Profiling Illusion, What’s Behind the Smoke and Mirrors (Vol. 35, No. 10, 1257-1276 (2008)) states: There is a belief that criminal profilers can predict a criminal's characteristics from crime scene evidence. In this article, the authors argue that this belief may be an illusion and explain how people may have been misled into believing that criminal profiling (CP) works despite no sound theoretical grounding and no strong empirical support for this possibility. Potentially responsible for this illusory belief is the information that people acquire about CP, which is heavily influenced by anecdotes, repetition of the message that profiling works, the expert profiler label, and a disproportionate emphasis on correct predictions. Also potentially responsible are aspects of information processing such as reasoning errors, creating meaning out of ambiguous information, imitating good ideas, and inferring fact from fiction. The authors conclude that CP should not be used as an investigative tool because it lacks scientific support.

The practice of criminal profiling, including sexual preference, does not have a good track record. I do agree that it should be used but not to REJECT a potential suspect, but only to include someone to a suspect list. Besides, here are examples of homosexual serial killers not targeting their sexual desires. Colin Ireland was a hetersexual serial killer targeting homosexual men. Michael Swango, a homosexual serial killer AND a medical professional (as professed by Dr. Tumblety), killed both men and women. Belgium Marc Dutroux killed girls.

Each one of these cases are somewhat different than the Whitechapel murders, but so are all serial killer cases. What all of these have in common, though, is the motive was something other than sado-sexual (the major motive for homosexual serial killers killing males). I repeat, we don’t know what JTR’s true motive was because we don’t know who he was. Tumblety was known for hating women, and if this was a motive it would be different motive than sado-sexual. Did he blame prostitutes for contracting a disease that caused his ill-health?

Sincerely,

Mike

[mklhawley]

Oops! I meant MrTwibbs. Sorry.

[MrTwibbs]

Oops! I meant MrTwibbs. Sorry.

lol no worries! haha!
Your post is very helpful thankyou. I was not aware of there being serial killers who targetted outside of their group. I was always under the impression perhaps due to serial profiling that there was never any precedent for this. It is this "illusion" mentioned in the article perhaps.

[Siobhan Patricia Mulcahy]

Going back onto FT, he does seem to be a likely suspect but is it likely a homosexual could be a murderer of the opposite sex? I personally don't know of any other occurrence of this happening?

Hi Mr Twibbs
I did out a rough list of bisexual/ gay serial killers who killed the opposite sex on another thread. You can access it here. http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=4005&page=4

It didn't go down too well with some!
Best,
Siobhán

[caz]

Colin Ireland was a hetersexual serial killer targeting homosexual men.

Hi Mike,

This kind of claim is always going to be problematic if some homosexuals - even in this day and age - live their lives in denial and self-loathing, and are assumed to be 'straight', or at most asexual. Indeed, there is no reason why that kind of self-loathing could not project itself outwards in the form of violent attacks on homosexuals who are openly gay. The confident 'straight' man with no issues need have no fear of gay men lurking round every corner, just waiting to force their unwelcome attentions on him. Such vanity, to think they would!

So Ireland could easily be a case of a closet gay who protested way too much. Was he lured to that one pub in Fulham purely by the promise of an easy kill, because he found the gay men there were all particularly easy? Some dedicated research work that must have taken for a genuinely straight guy. Or was it a fatal attraction to the thrill of being picked up there by gay men and taken back to their homes, where the night would end with Ireland punishing them for his own hated leanings?

I have no time for most of the profilers' confident predictions about an unknown offender's sexuality, motive, etc, so I'm not saying Ireland had to be gay to target gays. I'm actually urging caution where any claims (from the profilers or anyone else) rely on something claimed by the offender, about himself, that cannot easily be verified. Certainly we need to beware the profiler who claims to know more about an unidentified offender than a known offender could claim to know about himself.

In that respect, and given that all serial killers are going to be unique specimens of humanity, you are as entitled to allow for the possibility of a gay man mutilating menopausal women for jolly, as others are entitled to doubt that Tumblety - or indeed Jack the Ripper - was such a specimen.

Love,

Caz
X

[c.d.]

The title of this thread has to rank as one of the best of all time.

c.d.